The present invention relates to sun visors mounted in vehicles and more particularly to an improved method and apparatus for sliding and rotating a sun visor.
When driving a vehicle it is desirable to shield an occupant""s eyes from glaring sunlight which enters the vehicle interior through the windshield or the side windows. As a result, vehicle interiors are usually equipped with sun visors. Typically, a sun visor slides adjacent the vehicle windshield or side window to provide different areas of effective sun blocking protection. Such slidable sun visors must minimize the slide effort of the visor, while still controlling lateral play and flutter, typically known as backlash, during operation of the vehicle. Unfortunately, the tighter the design fit between mating surfaces within the visor assembly, the greater the slide effort must be. Typically, the slide bar or arm and the visor body each have a frictional engagement member for providing frictional engagement between each other. However, the frictional forces provided by the frictional engagement members cannot be selectively applied and released, and are typically constant. As a result, the constant, relatively high frictional forces must be overcome in order to slide the visor body along the slide bar. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide an improved method and apparatus for sliding and rotating a sun visor.
This invention relates to an improved method and apparatus for sliding and rotating a sun visor. Initially, a visor arm having a substantially cylindrical outer surface and a recessed detent portion is provided. A visor body has a spring clip assembly attached thereto and is also provided. The spring clip assembly includes a housing, a spring disposed within the housing, and a bushing for sliding engagement with the visor arm attached to the spring. The visor body is then rotated about the visor arm between a first position wherein the bushing contacts the detent portion of the visor arm, and a second position wherein the bushing contacts the cylindrical outer surface of the visor arm. The spring biases the bushing toward the visor arm so as to provide a clamping force on the visor arm when the visor body is in the first position and when the visor body is in the second position. Preferably, the bushing is a roller. The visor body is movable to an extended position, wherein the rollers roll along the visor arm. The spring biases the rollers toward the visor arm so as to provide a clamping force during movement of the visor body toward the extended position.
Various objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, when read in light of the accompanying drawings.